Day 96: Islas Galapagos. Where did 200 000 tortoises go?

May 14, 2006

Long live TAME's pilots, who manage to find the way to the tiny "enchanted
islands" 1000 km west of Ecuador's coast, and safely land the jets on
one of them, Isla Baltra - an island so petite that it barely fits the runway!
Of course, the biggest part of the credit goes to modern technologies which
help us find our way on the planet, but it is surprising indeed how Fray Tomas
de Berlanga, a Spanish bishop, stumbled upon the Galapagos in 1535. The size
of the Pacific Ocean is about 30 times bigger than the territory of the entire
USA, and the chances of finding a little unknown archipelago for early settlers
must have equaled a likelihood of discovering an oasis while riding a horse
across the Sahara Desert. Luckily for us, de Berlanga's ship became becalmed
on the intended course to Panama and was carried west by the strong currents
of the Pacific. Thus, by pure chance, the Galapagos Islands were discovered.

Sadly, some of the darkest ages followed the discovery - the three disgraceful
centuries, during which pirates, whalers and absent-minded colonists destroyed
most of the Galapagos wildlife. More than 200 thousand giant tortoises were
killed and used as a source of meat and oil, as were enormous numbers of whales,
sea lions, iguanas and birds. Many local species suffered from the introduced
varieties, mainly domestic animals: on some of the islands, rapidly multiplying
goats devoured all the grass, leaving the native herbivores, like giant tortoises,
to starve to death; pigs found iguana eggs particularly yummy; while dogs
went after the iguanas themselves Had the people of those times paid
at least some respect to the fabulous nature they accidentally came across,
we would be met by real tortoises and iguanas, and not by the plastic mock
ups which today greet the visitors at the Baltra airport.

Although no incredible animals made themselves available for our arrival
(definitely expected to see at least a couple of giant Galapagos tortoises
roaming around the airport!), everyone on the plane got nearly euphoric as
we touched the ground, especially the two scientists, who had been passionately
discussing the discovery of a minuscule marine creature for the entire duration
of the 1.5-hour flight. From what we heard, the new life form was very similar
to the one already documented, but had a blue dot instead of a red dot! With
a bit of luck, we might get to see both kinds :)

After paying the National Park entrance fee (USD100 per person, cash only)
and getting our luggage checked for the prohibited stuff (no animals, plants
or fresh food can be brought to the islands from the mainland), we were finally
free to step outside the airport. Since there was nothing to see or do on
Isla Baltra (apart from the airport, bus stop and passenger ferry terminal,
which appeared to be of little interest, there was hardly anything else on
this tiny island at all) we just followed the crowd straight to the bus, which
took us to the ferry, which transferred us to Isla Santa Cruz. After another
1.5-hour bus ride, and we were finally in Puerto Ayora, the largest town of
the Galapagos.

To tell the truth, Puerto Ayora, which was supposed to be the main tourist
center of the archipelago, made us a little anxious. Not only couldn't we
find any miraculous wildlife species (except for some more dummy tortoises
and iguanas, very similar to the ones we had already seen on Baltra), we also
had a hard time finding any Homo Sapiens! At the time we got there, which
was 2 or 3o'clock on Sunday afternoon, all the restaurants, cafes, shops and
tour agencies were closed, and there was almost nobody on the streets... We
spent an hour and a half in the hotel lobby watching Ecuadorian cartoons until
the owner finally showed up (woke up?) and checked us into our room
Yet, apart from being slightly dead on Sundays, Puerto Ayora appeared to be
a neat little town, which later at night (much later, after 9PM) suddenly
sprang into action: the oceanfront street filled up with people, all the restaurants,
bars, shops and discos reopened and started hopping, and the party went on
until 4AM (got lucky with the hotel again - had a room with the view to the
loudest disco in town!).

Guide your mouse pointer over the map to see our route or
click to enlarge